


heartlines

by lupinely



Series: even in another time [1]
Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-29
Updated: 2015-03-29
Packaged: 2018-03-20 02:07:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3632604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lupinely/pseuds/lupinely
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Asami,” Korra says, in a way that says she isn't listening, that she’s focused and sure of herself and knows what she’s about to do and that scares Asami more than anything else. </p><p>“Korra,” Asami says, echoing her.</p><p>And then Korra tries to kiss her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	heartlines

 

 

 

 

 

If you are in the garden, I will dress myself in leaves.  
If you are in the sea I will slide myself into that  
smooth blue nest, I will talk fish, I will adore salt.

—Mary Oliver, “Rhapsody Part 7”

 

 

 

 

 

 **i.**  
Korra, her smile bright and shining, her hand tight around Asami’s, pulls Asami head-first into the spirit world: blinding yellow light, the whispering of spirits.

Asami can’t help but think, _finally._

Which perhaps isn’t quite fair.

 

-

 

It’s not something you talk about much. Or think about, really. It’s the sort of thing you keep to yourself—your jacket buttoned all the way up to the collar, prim and neat. Prissy, even.

Asami’s fingers at the buttonholes, sliding buttons into place. Keeping her mouth shut.

She never meant for this to happen.

Her father used to say, "When are you going to find yourself a nice young man?" Her father used to say, "When you’re married," as if that was the beginning, as if that was inevitable. Asami never minded that much. She liked boys. But she liked girls, too, and she liked people who were neither, or both, and that’s not the sort of thing you bring up in casual conversation to your father even if he wants you to be happy. Even if he sends you letters every week from prison asking you how you are.

Mako was nice. Her father didn’t approve of him—Asami knew that even before she knew that her father was working for the equalists—and somehow that pleased her. _I’m not here for your approval, Dad,_ or something like that. Though his approval would have been nice.

Then he went to prison and she didn’t see him for five years. She kept hoping for his approval, secretly, and hating herself for it, because she didn’t need it or even want it. But she couldn't stop hoping, desperately, that maybe she would still get it.

(And she did, is the unbelievable part. But—not now, don’t think about that now. Push that aside for later, when it’s easier. When it doesn’t hurt as much.

So probably not ever, then.)

But the point is, she was never going to marry Mako. She didn’t want to marry Mako. He didn’t want to marry her. That was—they were kids. Teenagers. They dated and that’s all it was, really. Asami did some things that weren’t so wise, maybe, but she doesn’t regret them, because she’s accepted them and she’s accepted herself. But she also keeps her mouth shut.

Korra and Mako get together and break up and get together and break up and circle around each other like two stars slowly falling out of each other’s orbit and that makes Asami happier than she can remember being since her father went to prison. She slips, then, but only once: Bolin is tipping his glass to friendship, to Team Avatar, and Asami says, _finally_ —and Bolin tilts his head at her, just once, just a little bit. But it’s enough, because Bolin knows her pretty well and she knows him too well and she decides from then on that she’s going to be more careful, even if she doesn’t exactly know yet what she’s trying to hide.

 

-

 

Asami and Korra fall through the portal together, giggling, and they cling to each other as they stumble through until Asami looks around and wonder overtakes her, holds her fast. Blinking, wide-eyed. Spirits dancing like sprites in the sky—the sky? Is it the same here? In principle at least, though Asami thinks if you flew straight up you might eventually hit the ground again in this place. The spirit world is warm, and sunny, and gold, and she can hear music but she doesn’t know where it’s coming from. The air smells like cinnamon, sweet honey.

“It’s beautiful,” she says, trying to take it all in, to treasure every moment.

Korra says, “Yeah, it is.” She’s looking at Asami. Her eyes are still bright from laughing. She’s looking at Asami so intently that it makes Asami nervous. Asami wipes her palms on her trousers, suddenly very glad that Korra had let go of her hand once they’d stepped through the portal together.

“Where do you want to go first?” Korra asks.

“Why, do you have a map?” Asami smiles sideways over at Korra, and she can’t tell if Korra blushes or if it’s just the light from the pink flowers in the trees around them but she thinks, _please,_ and maybe, _finally,_ and, _let’s do it._

 

-

 

She slaps the metal of the hummingbird mech with the palm of her open hand, furious. “Come _on,_ I need you to work!”

Her father, calm: “It will work, Asami.”

She turns her back on him. It’s easiest. It’s still her immediate unconscious response to her father even though she knows that she needs to try harder, that things aren’t as broken as they were, though still fractured. But Kuvira is busy trying to raze Republic City to the ground, and Korra and Bolin and Mako and everyone else are out there fighting, and Asami is stuck inside, _again,_ stuck on the sidelines, _again,_ stuck trying to throw together some machine that will make her useful in this fight,  _again,_ and she knows this can work but nothing is going right. She doesn’t know where to put her hands except flat on the metal, pressing hard against it and wishing resentfully for it to give beneath her. Like Lin, like a metalbender. But this is platinum, something even a bender can’t touch; but Asami can.

She doesn’t want to watch Korra get hurt. _(Again.)_ Standing on the ground while Zaheer bent the breath out of Korra, poisoned her, and none of them could do anything but Asami felt more helpless than any of them, more useless, put there on the ground just to watch Korra fall. Korra fought so hard. She is a fighter to the core—what does Lin always say? Tough as nails. Tough enough that when she does need help, Asami can never be the one to give it to her.

But that was a long time ago. This is now, this is Kuvira, this is Republic City, and this time Asami is determined, at least, to not have to sit on the sidelines and watch.

Her father gently takes the wrench from her hand. He looks so old now. That terrified her when she first went to visit him at the prison. It had hurt more than returning all his letters to him unopened. She didn’t recognize him (a lie, but a comforting one); she had been afraid to hear him speak, because then she would know. She'd been afraid to hear her name from his mouth.

“Asami?”

Now she welcomes it, but with anger—look at all you missed, Dad, she thinks. Bitterly. This is what you lost because you wanted to hold onto me too tightly. This is what you’re never going to get back.

“I care about her, Dad,” Asami says, because it’s explanation enough, and she wants to force him to him hear it. Petty, she’ll tell herself later. You’ll wish you hadn’t been so angry with him in the end even after you forgave him. But you can’t always change how you feel.

He doesn’t have to ask who. It’s obvious enough, she should think. Yes; it’s been quite obvious for a long time now.

 

-

 

But it wasn't always obvious.

Asami used to hang around the probending stadium all the time. Lingering there while Mako and Bolin and sometimes Korra would practice before a big match. Geez, this is so long ago now—four years? When Amon lingered like a malediction over the whole city but before Korra lost her bending and got it back; after Asami had already wondered, several times—resentfully—why the fear of losing your bending was strong enough to hold an entire city in paralysis. _Would it be so bad?_ she wanted to ask—so many times. Mako snapping his fingers and lighting a cigarette between them and waiting for her to smile like she should be impressed, like she doesn’t have a matchbook in her pocket that she can wield herself. _Would it really be so bad to be like me?_

She never asked them, any of them. She didn’t want—still doesn’t want—to hear their answers.

(Bolin, diplomatically: “Yeah, but it’s not the same, you see? You weren’t born with it, you wouldn’t know what it’s like to have something taken away from you like that, you know?” Because she’s never lost anything, right? Not anything as important as bending.

Mako, misunderstanding: “You want to know what it’s like? Well, err, I guess it’s kind of—well, you see....” He would stop and start for fifteen minutes at length while she looked resentfully out the window of the carriage, because she doesn’t want to know what bending is like. She didn’t ask. Damn it.

And Korra, simply: “Yes.”

Good thing Asami never asked them, then.)

But probending was fun. Probending was bending without the risk—bending with rules and cheering crowds and points and athleticism and betting and superficiality behind every second of it. Probending was watching Mako and Bolin and Korra fight three other people and come off the match dripping with sweat and salt water and Asami would kiss Mako on the temple and drag her hands through the damp dark of his hair and he’d duck his head. Probending was watching Bolin and Korra gag behind the two of them when Asami did this and feeling—separate. Apart from what was happening around her. Korra and Bolin were mocking her but they were mocking her from another dimension, and it didn’t really matter, because she was getting what she wanted from Mako and getting what she wanted from probending, which was: the artificial thrill of it. The distraction from Amon and all the unexplained absences of her father that should have made sense to her even then and didn’t.

That doesn’t explain why Asami was always in the stadium during practices, during the off-time, when there weren’t any matches or crowds, just a dozen tired probenders wandering around and Mako and Bolin climbing down the ladder from their attic apartment.

She overhears Mako and Bolin arguing one day, only they aren’t arguing, precisely. Bolin wants to know what Asami is doing there all the time, which Asami will grant is a fair question. She’s there a lot. She has stopped working on her Future Industries projects even though that’s what had consumed her life until about three weeks ago when she hit Mako with her moped. When she started asking her dad where he went every night, and he started to lie back to her.

“She likes it,” Mako says. Good old Mako.

“Yeah, well, and _I_ don’t care if she’s here,” Bolin says, “but Korra does. And didn’t you yell at me all the time for always having my girls around?”

Mako blushes, meaning yes, meaning he recognizes his hypocrisy. They return to practicing their set. Asami lingers in the doorway where she’d overheard them and debates whether she should step inside or just go home.

Korra doesn’t want her here. That makes sense. Knowing that should have been enough for Asami to stay away more often, especially when she knew that Korra was going to be at practice. But she doesn’t.

Asami walks in on Korra in the changing rooms one day. Korra isn’t changing; she’s sitting on the bench, staring at her hands, slowly unwrapping the strips of fabric she’d tied around her knuckles before wrestling with Bolin. The white linen curls in spirals at her feet on the floor and she doesn’t move until she hears Asami’s footsteps, her solid heels on the tiles.

Korra jumps then. Fabric dangling from her left hand. Anger rises quickly, and maybe shame, or embarrassment. Something Asami doesn’t understand.

“What are you doing here?” Accusatory. Condemnative.

Asami doesn’t know what to say. “Looking for Mako.” She isn't.

Korra doesn’t say anything—maybe scoffs something—before she scoops up the strips of linen and shoulders roughly past Asami and walks away.

Asami standing there, barely breathing. The movement of air as Korra passes, as if Korra is an airbender already, as if the universe just bends itself around her and everything else has to simply adjust to her presence. Asami doesn’t know if she can bend towards Korra like that. She thinks maybe something will break inside her first.

 

-

 

She and Korra spend three days in the spirit world. When Asami looks back on it later, when she tries to describe it to someone else, she will not know what words to use. It will feel like remembering a dream—the more you try and remember everything, the less you can say what happened with conviction. All that’s left is the imprint, the way you felt, how you woke up in the middle of the night afterwards, shivering or smiling.

Some things she remembers clearly. Some things do not fade away. She stops Korra at some point a couple of days in. “How long are we going to stay here?”

Korra blinks at her. Blinks up at her, which Asami finds hard to reconcile with how tough Korra is, the strength of her presence, the intensity of her will. “Do you want to leave?”

“That’s not what I meant,” Asami says.

Korra looks around. Everything is as bright and yellow-blue beautiful as when they first stepped through the portal. Unreal in its otherworldliness. “I don’t know,” Korra says. “However long we want.”

“How long do _you_ want to stay?” Asami presses, and isn’t exactly sure why, but she knows somehow that this is important.

The slice of Korra’s grin, fading fast. “Longer than we can,” she says, and that’s all.

There’s more that Asami wants to ask. _Why did you ask me to come with you,_ though perhaps she might also add, _thank you for letting me join you this time._ They won’t be gone for three years—they’re only gone three days—but somehow there’s a parallel there that Asami is afraid to look in the eye. They both wanted to get away from Republic City. They both wanted a chance to breathe freely, to not have to think as much. But Asami has been thinking nonstop ever since they got here, trying to figure out what to say, if there are questions that she should even ask. _Tell me what you really mean,_ she wants to say, but that’s just not fair.

Korra isn’t subtle. She isn’t slow-moving, doesn’t take her time once she has her mind made up. She and Mako, flaring bright together and snuffing out nearly as quick. Asami is tired of moving slowly—she’s been moving slow for years. But she doesn’t want to flare out before she’s even begun. She doesn’t want to burn the oil all at once. She wants to breathe.

Korra may have changed in the three years she’s been away—a little older, a little wiser—but she’s still Korra, as compassionate and strong-hearted as ever. And Asami is still Asami. And there’s something still standing in the way of the two of them, even if Asami cannot name it.

 

-

 

On the third day—night? Night isn’t the same in the spirit world; colors don’t darken, they shift sideways and change—they stand side by side in front of the spirit portal again. Asami wants to reach out and take Korra’s hand but it doesn’t seem right this time. She hasn’t asked the right questions. She didn’t ask anything at all.

She drags her palm roughly against the front of her trousers. Korra sees her do it. Korra is watching her—the slide of her hand, how Asami slips it into her pocket afterwards to hide her nervousness. Asami doesn’t look at Korra directly but sees her from the corner of her eyes: not looking at the portal anymore, not looking at the portal at all. Looking at Asami. It’s too much to be directly in Korra’s sight. It’s too much to be the sole subject of Korra’s gaze and Asami doesn’t know why, when this is all she has wanted for such a long, long time.

“Guess we better get going,” Asami says weakly.

“Asami,” Korra says, in a way that says she isn't listening, that she’s focused and sure of herself and knows what she’s about to do and that scares Asami more than anything else.

“Korra,” Asami says, echoing her.

And then Korra tries to kiss her.

Asami doesn’t know why she pushes Korra away. It’s instinctive. She thinks about her father’s funeral and waiting three years for a letter from Korra and not getting one and watching Korra get tortured and she thinks about Bolin tilting his head at her more than three years ago, how he already knew and how much that hurt and so she catches Korra by the wrists, holds her fast, and turns her face away from Korra’s before Korra can kiss her.

Her heart is pounding. Asami can feel Korra’s pulse in her wrists—Korra’s heart is racing, too. They’re so close, Korra’s breath on Asami’s neck. After a terrifying, shattered moment, Korra huffs out a laugh.

“Sorry,” she mumbles.

“No,” Asami says; “Korra, don’t—”

“I could have asked first, I guess,” Korra says. “I just wanted—I just want—Asami....”

“I know,” Asami says. “Korra, you don’t know much I’ve thought about—well, it doesn’t matter.” She lowers their hands, shifts so that they’re holding each other’s hands and she isn’t clinging to Korra’s wrists anymore. Korra is sweating. It’s charming. “I care about you,” Asami says. Licks the corner of her mouth. “Very much so, Korra. It’s just....”

She struggles for what to say and lands on what is, strangely, the easiest. “My dad died three weeks ago.”

Korra exhales. Her thumb glides over Asami’s knuckles. Asami’s head is stuffed with cotton so that she can barely think, but she notices, faintly, that the light in the spirit world has shifted. Not darkened—it never darkens—but the timbre has changed. The meaning of the light.

“I want this,” Asami says. “I want to try this. But I don’t want to make the same mistakes or go too fast. I want us to know what we’re doing. I want us to take our time, now that we have it.”

Korra looks up, finally, from where she has been looking down at their joined hands. She is still very close. Asami almost thinks, _just do it,_ almost takes back everything she just said and leans down to kiss Korra for real this time. But she doesn’t.

Instead, her right hand comes up without thinking about it; she cradles the side of Korra’s jaw, warm skin, the line of Korra’s throat, and presses her thumb against Korra’s bottom lip. Delicately. Handle, she thinks, with care.

Then she realizes what she’s done, and she pulls away. Korra sways when Asami backs off.

“No,” Korra says slowly, and then adds when she sees the look on Asami’s face—“I mean, you’re right. I....”

She looks around at the spirit world, which is blue and purple and endless in every direction but up. And then she steps towards Asami again.

“Let’s do it,” she says, and she pulls Asami after her through the spirit portal one more time. And in the portal, there’s nowhere else to go _but_ up.

 

 

 

 

 

 **ii.**  
Korra opens the door to her room on Avatar Island, sees Naga, and runs forward to bury her face in Naga’s fur.

“I’m an idiot,” she groans, and Naga growls something in dissonance, turning her head to try and lick Korra’s face.

“I mean it.” Korra breathes in the scent of Naga’s fur until her nose tickles. “Am I ever going to figure out how being with someone works? Am I ever not going to do something wrong?”

She had thought—but she hadn’t thought _wrong._ The surprise on Asami’s face when Korra had suggested the two of them take a vacation had been disbelieving but pleased. Frightened but only in a way that means your stomach has butterflies in it. Korra knows because she’d felt the exact same way.

But Asami—her gaze sliding away from Korra, towards the portal, the unhappy set of her mouth. Korra hadn’t known what to say and so she tried to kiss Asami instead. Perhaps not her best plan. It hasn’t always worked well in the past.

Korra hadn’t known until recently that the way she felt about Asami had changed so much. It felt sudden, like an earthquake. She had to rebuild everything around the focal point of the destruction and realign herself, had to think, _yes, I see now._

And after that it was just—why wait?

“I was so stupid.” Korra slides onto the floor and rests against Naga’s side. Naga huffs into her hair and buries her cold nose against Korra’s neck and starts to snore.

“Good girl,” Korra says, quietly, rubbing her thumb over Naga’s snout.

Korra remembers Asami’s hand coming up to touch her face, to drag her thumb over Korra’s lower lip. How Korra wanted to launch herself up on tiptoe and throw her arms around Asami’s neck to distract from the way her heart was pounding in her chest.

 _I want this,_ Asami had said, and Korra could see clearly in her eyes that this was true and it was a weight being lifted from her shoulders. It was three days alone in the spirit world made validated. It was picking up the pieces after a natural disaster and making the land clean once more.

Asami doesn’t want to go too fast. Korra doesn’t want to go too fast, either—not fast enough to ruin this. But Korra is afraid, too—she can’t help but be afraid. She lives with the knowledge of wasted time, of how quickly months can turn to years without you realizing that you’re stuck standing still. And Korra doesn’t want that to happen again.

She sighs, running her fingers through Naga’s fur. She’s silent for a moment, focusing on this, on the huff of Naga’s breath, until she says: “You think she really likes me?”

Naga turns to her, balefully disinterested, and licks Korra’s face.

“Come on,” Korra says, trying to be stern but laughing as she pushes Naga’s nose away, and then she hears someone cough lightly behind her. Korra freezes, her whole body taken over by sudden panic. If Asami wanted to take things slow or—or whatever she wants—then she probably doesn’t want Korra asking dumb questions like that where anyone can overhear.

“You’re back.” It’s Jinora. She stands in the doorway, smiling, looking pleased and tired. “I saw your boat coming back to the island. I didn’t know if you wanted company but I thought I’d say hello.”

“Yeah, that’s, that’s fine,” Korra says, trying to recover quickly and unnoticeably.

“I thought you’d be gone longer,” Jinora says. “You seemed like you needed a break.”

“Time feels different in the spirit world,” Korra says, in way of answer.

“Yes, I guess it does.” Jinora looks around, comes forward to pet Naga. “Where’s Asami? Did she come to the island with you?”

“No, she’s at her place.” Korra had said goodbye to her at the doorstep, awkwardly. She hadn’t wanted to let go of Asami’s hands.

“Too bad.” Jinora’s expression is unreadable, but it makes Korra uneasy. How much had Jinora overheard? Korra doesn’t know whether she should ask or act like nothing happened, like she didn’t just disappear with Asami for three days and come back and start lamenting to her polar beardog like some sort of lovesick teenager. Aren’t things supposed to be easier the second time around? Wasn’t that the deal?

“It’s almost dinner time,” Jinora says, pushing a strand of hair behind her ear. The tattoo on the back of her hand is still dark and bold; Aang’s stayed that way too, for his whole life. “Ready to come down?”

“Sure,” Korra says, and she and Naga follow Jinora to the kitchen to help Pema and the others lay out supper.

 

-

 

For once, Korra thinks maybe Republic City can get a break.

No more attacks from giant dark-Avatars or huge platinum mechs with spirit rays that can slice buildings in half. No more accidentally opening spirit portals to a different dimension in the middle of what used to be Republic City midtown. No more terrorist organizations masquerading as political protests. Peace and quiet, for once. A chance to breathe, even.

Korra worries that she maybe doesn’t know how to help a city that isn’t in the middle of some sort of crisis, though. She’s never had the chance. Every time she turns around, something else has gone wrong. And now that it looks like things just might be going _right...._

There is that part of her, the part that kept her away from Republic City for three years, that’s still there. That still whispers in her head. That still says: every time you come home, something awful happens. What went wrong in Republic City when you were away for three years? Nothing—they did just fine without you.

It’s the part of her that’s hard to shut up, near impossible to silence. The part that talked at her nonstop for three years, the part that had her lying in the dirt, the part that stared her down in the middle of the street as a dark mirror of herself, its eyes glowing pure white, silent, voiceless, but so loud as to be impossible to ignore.

She wonders what sort of ghosts followed Aang around. Whether he knew how to keep them quiet or if he fell asleep listening to them chatter quietly in his head every night like Korra does.

There’s so much she should have asked him when she still had the chance.

(Tenzin had approached her about this once. Before Jinora got her tattoos, before Jinora started to breathe the way that the spirits in the spirit world do, slow and easy, and Korra noticed. Back when Tenzin was the only one who could really begin to understand what Korra had lost.

“Just because you cannot talk to them directly anymore doesn’t mean that my father and the other past Avatars are no longer with you.” Tenzin, looking out over the water of the bay towards Republic City. Calm, steady. Korra feeling small and insensible next to him. “His guidance will still be there for you when you need it, perhaps manifesting in different ways, but there nonetheless. I am sure of it.”

Korra hadn’t said anything then. She could feel Tenzin’s disappointment though he tried to hide it, though he himself did not truly understand why he felt it. _Sorry I destroyed the last piece of your dad still left on this earth,_ Korra thought, and still said nothing. _Sorry, but I don’t think you’re right, Tenzin; I’ve changed and lost in ways you don’t understand yet._

Somehow it made her angry that Tenzin hadn’t understood. He was supposed to have the answers for her. She would learn, as time went on, that no one else could do that for her anymore: and that she couldn’t look inward, scry through time and look through the past to the faces of her past lives, her past selves, and seek their counsel; could no longer feel their influence when she spoke with the voice of the Avatar Spirit.)

 

-

 

Korra wrote a lot of letters when she was in the South Pole, but she never sent any of them—just the one to Asami, the single letter of dozens that had seemed okay enough to let one of her friends read. All the others had been—she doesn’t know. Trying too hard. Too self-pityingly. Too overly friendly and bright. Too angry and bitter. _Why do you get to have fun and live your life while I’m stuck here?_ she’d written hundreds of times and then crossed out over and over again until her hands ached. The first few months, sitting in bed was all she could do, so she read, which bored her, or wrote, which frustrated her, or slept, which is what she mostly did. When she started making progress in her physical therapy, she obsessed over the letters less—but just slightly.

 _Why am I the one who has to suffer?_ she’d write and cross out. That wasn’t fair, and she knew it wasn’t fair, and still she wanted to yell it in someone’s face. _Why don’t you ever say anything true in your stupid letters,_ and she almost sent that one. She was sick of hearing about Mako’s job, about how his day on the force had gone, how many arrests he was making. Sick of hearing about how Bolin was getting along so well with Opal and how happy he was (exclamation point, exclamation point, exclamation point!). Sick of hearing about Asami’s company.

 _Say something true,_ she shouted, and crossed out, and scribbled over, and screamed into Naga’s fur, and then one day, Asami did.

_I miss my father. I don’t know why. He ruined my life, my future. He took everything from me. But it seems silly not to have him here if he’s alive, if I can just go over and see him. I can’t see my mom anymore no matter how much I want to. I can see my dad, and most days I hate just thinking about him, but some days I’m weaker and I think—_

(Several lines of scratched out sentences.)

_Never mind, you don’t want to hear me whine. You’ve got other stuff to worry about._

Korra had reread the paragraph about Hiroshi several times over, so fast the words blurred together. Asami missed her father—her murdering, traitorous father who had tried to kill her and nearly helped Amon take over Republic City.

Korra had only been afraid of her father once—two years ago, when Unalaq was conquering the South and Korra had feared her father was part of the rebellion trying to assassinate Unalaq. She’d been so afraid that she’d tasted poison in her mouth, tasted hellfire, but it hadn’t last long: only a few hours. Only a few moments.

Asami has lived with that for years. Korra wonders how it has changed her, the acidity of her mouth. Whether Asami still tastes the poison or if she’s gone numb to it, at last.

Asami’s letters are more honest after that. As if the longer Korra has been away, the easier it is for Asami to talk to her. As if there was something between the two of them before that prevented Asami from talking openly to Korra, face to face.

_My company keeps losing money and I don’t know what to do about it. I’m getting so tired of cleaning up my dad’s mess. I want to make my own legacy, not try to fix the black mark on his._

Later:

_I wish Mako wouldn’t get weird around me still. I know that’s not fair and it’s partly my fault too and I know you don’t want to talk about this at all and I’m sorry about that. I wish I could tell him it’s okay but somehow I still can’t._

And still later, a few weeks before Korra left the South Pole:

_I miss you. Should I say that? I don’t mean to pressure you. I want you to do whatever you need to do to feel better. I just thought I should say it. It’s been a long time. Sometimes you need to be reminded of important things like that. Anyway—take care, Korra._

Asami’s letters weren’t like Mako’s or Bolin’s or Tenzin’s. They weren’t nervous or uncertain or spurious. And Korra is starting to realize—now, back in Republic City, after almost kissing Asami in the spirit world—that she has never told Asami any of those sorts of things. She has thought them, and wanted to say them, and thought maybe that they were obvious enough without being voiced—but how can they be? Asami wrote letters for years, and Korra didn’t write back. Korra doesn’t think she can expect Asami to return Korra’s feelings now when Asami doesn’t know yet, not completely, what exactly Korra is even trying to say.

 

-

 

“Bolin and Asami got here this morning,” Jinora says when Korra passes her on her way down to the kitchen for breakfast (though, truthfully, it’s almost noon). “Bolin wanted to wake you up, but I talked him out of it. They’re down in the kitchen.”

Korra, trying to be composed; “Thanks.” Jinora smiles, continues on her way up the stairs.

Outside the door to the kitchen, Korra stops and takes a moment to gather herself. It’s just breakfast, she tells herself firmly. You’ve done this a hundred times before. She thinks about Asami in the spirit world, looking up, her green eyes reflecting the shimmering motion of the spirits flittering above them. Then Korra lets out the breath she’s been holding and pushes open the door.

Bolin bowls her over right away and nearly knocks her off balance. “There’s the Avatar girl we know and love,” he says, and kisses her loudly on the cheek. Korra pushes him away.

“I’ve been gone three days, not three years,” she says, trying to hit humorous and light and falling somewhere around flat and pathetic. Bolin, bless him, steamrolls right over the tense moment.

“Well, excuse me for being excited to see you, sleepyhead,” Bolin says. “Did you just roll out of bed or what?”

Korra’s hand shoots up to feel her hair, which is still mussed and tangled from sleep. Ever since she cut it, her hair gets all over the place in the morning. She can feel herself blushing, and she steadfastly does not look at Asami, who is smiling, warmly, and looking right at her.

“C’mon and eat, Korra.” Asami slides over on the bench beside the table so that Korra can sit next to her. Korra, still feeling off balanced, like maybe Bolin knocked over something permanent inside her, sits down next to Asami and tries not to look as flushed and hot as she feels. Is she sitting too close? Should she sit closer to Asami? Should she slide to the end of the bench?

Before she can decide, Bolin sits across from them and slides a plate full of food across the table at Korra. “Here,” he says. “Saved this for you, since you were so busy getting your beauty rest.”

Korra pulls the plate towards herself, wondering if the unease in her stomach is hunger or nervousness or both. She glances over at Asami finally, and meets her gaze.

Asami’s smile deepens. She pushes a few stray strands of Korra’s hair behind her ears with the tips of her fingers. Her hand lingers, just for a moment, on Korra’s shoulder before she lets it fall again. “Go on,” she says.

Korra remembers, a long time ago, resenting the easy way that Asami would reach out and touch people. A hand on Mako’s shoulder, a nudge to Bolin’s ribs. When Asami first met Korra, she tried to say goodbye by kissing Korra on the cheek, and Korra had stiffened and wished, with vigor, that Asami would just get the hell away from her. Asami builds friendships earnestly; like Korra, she’d been isolated as a child, though not to the same degree and not for the same reason. Her father had wanted to keep her safe after her mother was murdered, and so she spent very little time with kids of her own age.

Korra doesn’t remember how she learned this. Had Asami told her, years ago? Or had it been Mako, trying to endear Korra to Asami and likely just strengthening Korra’s old resentment without meaning to?

Asami’s fingertips, Korra’s exposed shoulder. Korra tries to remember if any of Asami’s other gestures have been this intimate, this secretive in their intent, this _flirtatious,_ right under Bolin’s nose!—and can’t decide. It happens to be at this moment very hard to think, and Asami won’t stop smiling that sly sideways smile. Bolin is yammering about something Korra isn’t paying attention to, and so she turns to her food and hopes her face isn’t bright red and starts shoving her breakfast into her mouth to compensate.

She hears, quietly, Asami laugh.

Somehow this makes Korra burn, not with embarrassment, but pleasure. It’s hard to pin down what it is—how innocent they’re playing with Bolin right there? How easy it is for Asami to make Korra blush, and for Korra to make Asami laugh in turn? (That is perhaps, Korra thinks, the best feeling she’s ever had.) But it’s more than any of that really: it’s the knowledge that they’ve crossed a crucial point: the knowledge that Korra tried to kiss Asami in the spirit world, and not in the way Asami once kissed Korra on the cheek, as a friend—with friendship, yes, but with romance and warmth and flirtation and levity, more.

Korra’s never felt this way with anyone. There’s never been this period of—she tries not to sound stupid even as she thinks it and can’t help it, of _courtship_ —of pleasant comfort in being around each other and knowing that it’s okay not to jump in too fast—that it’s okay to take it slow and enjoy every moment and look forward to the next without rushing into it too quickly.

Korra looks down, notices Asami’s hand is now resting on the bench between the two of them. Emboldened, Korra switches hands so she’s eating with her left, albeit clumsily, and puts her other hand right next to Asami’s, so close that their pinky fingers touch; and then, when a look of sudden surprise crosses Asami’s face, _oh,_ and Bolin is still talking and not noticing any of this, Korra slides her hand over Asami’s and curls her fingers around hers, sliding her thumb along Asami’s knuckles.

Asami doesn’t blush— _unfair_ —but her mouth snaps shut, and she closes her fingers around Korra’s, and her smile turns from crafty to shy.

Bolin waves his hands in front of Korra’s face. “Hello?” he demands. “Are you two even listening to me?”

 

-

 

They spend the day wandering the island, which has changed quite a bit in the three years since Korra has been gone. Most of the Air Nomads spend their time in the Air Temples or traveling the world, but there are usually a few on the island at any one time, visiting the city or resting or preparing for their next trips. Korra hasn’t talked to any of them much, not since she got back—she doesn’t know what to say. How to express her gratitude to them and sound like she means it _(thanks for keeping the world together while I was gone)_ —but seeing them warms her heart, lightens her step. In all the things she’s done since she came to Republic City so many years ago, this, at least, she knows to be unequivocally good: restoring the Air Nomads restored balance, restored tranquility, helped make amends for crimes that happened more than a hundred fifty years before she was born.

Maybe Aang can see this even if he can’t talk to her. Maybe all her past lives are still watching her from wherever they are now, even if she doesn’t know it.

Korra tries not to think about that much—she doesn’t know why she’s been lingering on it so often these days. Something about facing Kuvira in the spirit world, seeing her not as an opponent but as a mirror, had magnified this grief that Korra feels, for someones whom she has never known and yet, whom she is.

Korra, Asami, and Bolin make their way down to the water as the afternoon starts to wane. The air is still warm from the heat of the day, and the water looks cool and clear.

“Looks nice.” Bolin pulls his shirt over his head. “Wanna swim?”

Korra and Asami glance at each other. “Uh, no,” Korra says, and for some forsaken reason she’s blushing _again_. She hopes, very desperately this time, that it’s not noticeable.

“Your loss,” Bolin says, and he kicks off his shoes and does a cannonball into the water.

Korra and Asami sit next to each other on the rocky beach, watching Bolin swim laps back and forth along the shore.

Asami loops her arm through Korra’s. “Mako wanted to know if we wanted to all have dinner together tomorrow night.”

“Oh,” Korra says; she hadn’t been expecting that. “Where?”

“I was under the impression that he wanted to surprise us.”

“Hm,” Korra says. “Well, all right then.”

This is why, she thinks, the vacation—just the two of them—had been necessary. Maybe they should have stayed away longer. It’s just that here, with everyone else around, it’s impossible to get a moment alone with Asami. And right now, that’s all that Korra wants.

Bolin is swimming towards them, stroking fast through the water. When he reaches the end of his lap and turns around, swimming quickly away from them, Asami suddenly pulls Korra close and kisses her on the cheek.

“Thanks for being patient,” she says.

Korra, fumbling, resists the urge to press her fingertips to the spot on her face where Asami’s lips had been. “Uh, yeah,” she says. “Sure. I mean—you were right, and I realized, actually, that I needed to talk to you about stuff, just to be clear, you know, about everything, and—”

Bolin’s coming out of the bay now, dripping salt water everywhere. He sits down next to Korra and Asami with a huff before Korra can say anything further.

“Chilly,” he remarks. His lips are blue.

Korra sighs. “Let me dry you off,” she says, and waterbends the water from his clothes and hair.

Bolin shakes his hair out of his eyes. “Thanks,” he says, and then, his grin unnervingly sly—“You’ve got something on your face, by the way.”

Korra’s hand flies up and she rubs Asami’s lipstick off her cheek. “Weird,” she says, and Asami hums something in noncommittal response.

 

-

 

After Bolin and Asami leave that night with the promise of the group of them getting together for dinner tomorrow at Mako’s request, Jinora corners Korra on her way back to her room. She looks intense and serious. “Korra, I need to talk to you.”

Korra stops on the stairwell. She thinks of giant mechs attacking the city and airbenders getting shot out of the sky and Jinora in some sort of serious trouble until Jinora says, still very seriously: “What’s going on with you two?”

Korra stares at her. “What? Who?”

“You and Asami,” Jinora says with exasperation, and Korra thinks, _oh crap._

“Nothing,” she says. “Nothing’s going on. Why would you ask?”

“Because,” Jinora says, like it’s self-explanatory; “every time someone says her name you look like you’ve been pinched! Whenever she’s around you’ve been acting so _weird.”_

Korra eyes Jinora warily. “Have you been spying on me?”

“No,” Jinora says. Then hesitates. “Maybe a little. But it’s so boring on this island waiting for Dad to come back and tell me I can help in the city again!”

“Why don’t you just go anyway?” Korra asks.

“Trust me, I’ve considered it,” Jinora says, grimly. “And anyway, I didn’t want to bother you. It looked like you and Bolin and Asami were having fun on your own.”

“We wouldn’t have minded,” Korra says, bewildered. “They love hanging out with you.”

“Yeah, well.” Jinora tugs on the ends of her hair and rocks on the balls of her feet. “This isn’t about me, anyway! You didn’t answer my question.”

“Yeah, I know,” Korra says. “That was on purpose.”

Jinora lets her hand fall. “Nothing bad happened at least, right? You can tell me that much? Nothing went wrong when you two were in the spirit world?”

“N-no,” Korra says. “Nothing bad happened.”

“Good.” Jinora smiles, bright and sudden. “Did anything _good_ happen?”

Korra, somewhat mortified, doesn’t know what to say. Are she and Asami really that obvious? Can everyone tell just by looking at them?

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Jinora says. And then she giggles and claps her hands together. “Oh, Korra! It’s so romantic.”

Korra slaps one hand over Jinora’s mouth. “No using that word!” she says. “And don’t tell anyone, okay? Please? Asami said—well, I don’t know if she wants anyone to know yet. Can you keep it secret for now?”

Jinora nods emphatically, her head bobbing up and down. Korra removes her hand from Jinora’s mouth and Jinora sighs, longingly. “It’s just _so—”_

“Do not say it,” Korra says, but she can’t help but smile. “And besides, I don’t act anywhere near as weird as you do around Kai.”

Jinora squawks indignantly. “I do not!”

 

 

 

 

 

 **iii.**  
Bolin drops Asami off at her apartment. Asami hasn’t lived in the mansion since her father was imprisoned, and now that he’s gone—well, it doesn’t seem like there’s much point in it.

“That was fun today.” Bolin hovers outside Asami’s door as she unlocks it. “Right?”

“It was,” Asami says, more focused on the lock than on Bolin.

“Asami?” She hums something in response. “Can I ask you something?”

The door finally unlocks, and she looks over at Bolin. He looks unusually serious. “Uh, yeah,” she says. “You want to come inside?”

“If that doesn’t bother you.”

“’Course not.” It’s only as Asami leads Bolin inside that she realizes Bolin has never been in her apartment the whole time she’s had it. None of her friends have. She’s kept it all to herself, and suddenly she can’t quite understand why.

The space changes when Bolin walks through it. She knows, suddenly, that she’s never going to get her apartment back the same way again. That’s okay, though. She didn’t particularly like her apartment before. Maybe it will be better now.

“Want a tour?” Asami asks, because that’s something you do when you have a guest, even when you don’t live in a mansion with an indoor pool anymore.

“Sounds great,” Bolin says, grinning at her, and she shows him the place—all four of its small rooms—before they settle in the kitchen around her tiny table, which only has two chairs. One of them is piled high with blueprints and business forms that she has let gather there over the years.

“Sorry,” she says, embarrassed, and sweeps them off the chair. Looking around, she realizes there’s nowhere else to put them, so she sets the stack precariously on the counter and sits at the table, hoping her face hasn’t grown hot. She nudges out the now-bare chair with her foot for Bolin to sit on.

He does. “Nice place.”

“It’s fine,” Asami says. “Boring. I spend most of my time in the labs working.”

“I know,” Bolin says.

Asami looks around her tiny kitchen, casting about for something to say. “I’m glad we’re all back in the city again. It was weird when you and Korra were gone.”

“Me too,” Bolin says. “And it only took a giant robot death machine to get us here.”

The joke falls rather flat. Asami wishes she had turned another light on so they wouldn’t be sitting in the dark like this.

Finally, she says, “You wanted to ask me something?”

“Oh, right.” Bolin looks down at his hands, which he has folded together on the table, his thumbs twiddling. “Just, you know—it seemed like a good idea to ask, before. I dunno.”

“Just tell me,” Asami says.

Bolin looks up at her. Green eyes, the cowlick of his hair. “Are you all right? I feel like no one really checked after what happened.”

He means after her dad died. Asami doesn’t know what to say. She hadn’t expected this question—hadn’t expected anyone to ask if she is all right. Of course she is all right; she hadn’t had her bending taken away, or been poisoned, or had to watch her brother get manipulated by Kuvira, or burned her arm lightningbending the generator that fueled Kuvira’s mech. She’d just—done her job. Gotten everyone else into the mech so they could destroy it. And hung in the sky, nothing around her but air for as far as she could reach, as her father died right in front of her.

“I’m fine,” she says automatically.

“Asami,” Bolin says gently. He doesn’t look angry or pitying, which would have set Asami off; he looks tired and a little upset. She decides that if there’s anyone she can be honest with about this, it’s Bolin.

“I don’t know,” she says at last. “I hadn’t talked to him in years. I didn’t even know I had forgiven him until—until—” She trails off. “It almost feels like he died a long time ago. I don’t know why it still hurts so much.”

“It won’t stop hurting,” Bolin says quietly. “Trust me on that one.”

She looks up at him. He looks so much older than he is sometimes. “He was a horrible father,” she says; “you were right about that one.” Bolin crooks a half-smile at her. “But—he was my horrible father, you know? Sorry. I don’t know how to talk about it.”

“Me either,” Bolin says. “Never have. Mako doesn’t like to talk about anything. But I figure—sometimes you have to.”

“Yeah,” Asami says, and she reaches out and puts her hand on his. “Thanks, Bolin.”

 

-

 

During the three years that Korra is away, after Bolin leaves to join Kuvira in unifying the Earth Kingdom, Asami and Mako have a fight and don’t talk to each other for several weeks.

It goes like this:

They don’t see each other that often these days. They’re always working: Asami on her company, Mako on the police force. He’s trying to make detective. He’s trying hard to earn Beifong’s respect, and while Asami can see the appeal, she can’t help but wonder if being a cop is the right job for Mako. But that’s not what they fight about.

Asami reaches out to him since it’s been so long since they’ve seen each other, and one day on Mako’s lunch break they walk the few blocks from the police station to an ice cream shop and sit outside in the sun, trying to keep the ice cream from dripping onto their clothes.

“Been a while,” Asami says. She wishes Bolin were there; it’s still hard for her to be around Mako like this even though she wishes it weren’t.

Mako nods. “Beifong keeps me busy. I know I should make time though.”

“It’s all right,” Asami says. Catches some ice cream trying to drip from her cone with her tongue. “How’ve you been?”

A noncommittal grunt.

“Seeing anyone lately?” She knows he’s not, but it’s still fun to ask sometimes. Mako always flounders.

And he does, predictably. Rubs the back of his neck with his free hand and doesn’t look at her. “No. Uh, you?”

“No,” she says, deciding she shouldn’t push him. It’s not his fault they broke up. She’s not even mad at him for it, doesn’t know whether she even was at the time. Seeing Korra and Mako kiss right in front her a day after she thought she and Mako were dating again had been hard, but—sometimes, she’s not sure if she knows exactly _why._

She should know, she thinks. It shouldn’t be this hard to figure that out.

“Good,” Mako says, and then looks over at her. “I mean—I don’t mean it’s good that you’re not dating, I just mean, if we’re _both_ not dating, at least we’re both not dating together.”

He looks so nervous. She should know by now better than to bring this up.

“Yeah,” Asami says. “I mean, dating’s not everything. I’m glad to have my friends, too.”

Mako looks down at his ice cream cone. “Even if they aren’t here.”

“Have you heard from Bolin recently?”

“A few letters. He’s doing good. Better than good, really.” Mako’s quiet, then: “I’m proud of him.”

Asami smiles. “You should tell him.”

Mako—with surprising self-awareness—laughs. “Yeah, I know.”

For some reason this makes Asami angry. “Are you going to?”

“Yeah,” Mako says. But Asami knows he’s lying. It’s not Mako's fault that he’s bad at it—both lying and saying what he means. It’s not his fault. Asami knows that. She’s still angry.

“That’s it?” she asks him.

He looks up at her, surprised. “What?”

She’d thought, when they first met, that they were of a height, but now she sees she is slightly taller, and noticeably so when she’s wearing heels. It’s satisfying somehow.

“You’re so predictable,” she says. She starts to gather her stuff. “Nice talking to you, Mako.”

“Asami—”

She tugs her arm away when he tries to grab her and nearly loses her stupid ice cream. “Look, Mako, if you don’t want to be honest with me that’s fine, because I can handle it. But you should at least be honest with your brother.”

“What are you talking about?” Mako says, bewildered.

Asami isn’t sure she even knows. “Have you written to Korra?”

Mako stares at her. “What does that have to do with anything?”

She doesn’t know. “See you later, Mako,” she says, and hails a cab to her apartment.

And then they don’t talk at all for five weeks. Asami tries to convince herself that it’s not because she’s angry, but she is. It’s hard to explain why. She’ll think later that she was less mad at Mako than she was with herself. Mako is no good at lying, but Asami is starting to think that maybe she’s gotten a little too good at it.

 

-

 

Someone knocks on the door to Asami’s apartment as she is getting ready the next night for dinner with Mako and the others. Not expecting anyone, Asami peeks through the peep hole to see who it is.

It’s Korra, standing uncertainly in the hallway, shifting her weight on the balls of her feet.

Asami opens the door. “Korra.”

“Hi.” Korra looks very flushed and slightly uncomfortable; she’s wearing a dress, pale green, knee length, and looks very cute. She’s holding something behind her back. “I thought I’d pick you up for dinner. That’s what people do, right?”

“People have done that,” Asami says. She steps aside. “Want to come in?”

“Okay,” Korra says, and steps inside. The second new person in Asami’s apartment in two days. This place really will never be the same. Asami isn’t embarrassed to show Korra her apartment somehow, not even the stacks of paperwork and blueprints that cover most available surfaces, the piles of books on engineering and city development that stand precariously stacked.

Korra looks around quietly, blinking. She is still holding one hand behind her back, and she tugs at the ends of her hair with the other. Then she glances over at Asami. “Oh, these are for you,” she says, and she produces a small bouquet of flowers from behind her back: yellow gold and white, long slender pale stems.

Asami takes them and breathes in their fragrance. Sweet but not cloying. She wonders if there’s enough sunlight in her apartment to keep them alive for very long. “Thank you,” she says, can’t help the smile that tugs at her mouth. Korra is looking at her very earnestly. “You’re sweet. I love them.”

Korra grins at her, breaking through her nervousness, and suddenly she’s recognizable again, more herself. “I didn’t know which ones to get, the guy at the shop had to help me.”

“Well, he did good,” Asami teases. She goes into the tiny kitchen and finds a small jar, which she fills with water and arranges the flowers in. Then she takes one out, a small gold bell-shaped one, and tucks it behind her ear.

“Good?” she asks Korra, who nods.

“I have to get dressed,” Asami says. “You surprised me, I’m not ready. Give me a few minutes, okay? I have, um, water if you’re thirsty.”

“I’m fine.” Korra sits at the kitchen table where Bolin had sat last night. Asami thinks about the girl she had met five years ago—the bright brilliant intense fierce girl who just wanted to do her best, and who hadn’t like Asami very much at all. Asami had never thought they’d be like this now. It’s better than any of the scenarios she briefly toyed with over the years and quickly discarded; in those fantasies, Korra had never brought her flowers.

Asami reemerges from her room after a few minutes, dressed in deep purple, the gold flower still in her hair. She holds out her hand to Korra when she enters the kitchen.

“Let’s go,” she says; “don’t want to keep everyone waiting.”

They hold hands all the way to the restaurant, which is upscale and classy. Asami’s never been here before, but she hasn’t dined out much in the past few years. Korra keeps tugging at the sleeves of her dress, looking occassionally cross and trying to hide it from Asami.

“You should get a suit,” Asami tells her. “I bet you’d like that better. I can help you pick one out.”

Korra glances up at her, considering, but doesn’t get a chance to answer because they’ve reached the restaurant and Mako is waving them over. Asami slides her hand out of Korra’s and hopes, fervently, that Korra knows it’s not because she’s embarrassed—not because she doesn’t want the others to ever know—it's only because she’s not ready, and she wants them both to be ready, and she doesn’t—

Want to ruin this, is the thing.

Mako is sitting at the table, looking flushed and harried. Wu is sitting next to him, no doubt causing a great deal of Mako’s current annoyance. Bolin and Opal are also there, seated next to each other on the other side of the table, which leaves the third side for Korra and Asami to sit.

Asami slides in first and Korra follows after her. Asami feels as if it is so obvious what they’ve both been doing—like they were just making out in the parking lot instead of just holding hands. She hastily takes a sip of water.

“Good, we’re all here.” Mako sounds pleased. He looks at Asami for a moment, like he’s trying to communicate something to her but she doesn’t know what, and then he turns away to the table at large. “Finally all in one place again.”

“Where’s the speech you wrote, Mako?” Wu asks. He looks out towards the others. “He kept working on it all day.” Opal giggles.

“I did not—” Mako says, and then catches himself. “I didn’t. Can you let me finish, please?”

“Sure, sure,” Wu says, holding up his hands defensively, and then he turns to whisper, loudly, in Asami’s ear: “He did.”

Mako pinches the bridge of his nose. “I was saying,” he says, loudly, “that it’s been a long time, and now that the city is quieting down again and we can have some time to ourselves, I just wanted us to have a fun night together.”

“So you chose a fancy restaurant instead of an amusement park?” Bolin asks.

Opal swats him on the shoulder. “I think it’s sweet. Thank you for inviting me, Mako.”

“Yeah.” Mako sounds flustered now. “Sure, of course, Opal. Um, well, that’s all I wanted to say, and that I—care about you guys, and I’m glad we’re all here now.”

He sits down, looking embarrassed and a little unhappy, and Asami leans over the table to put her hand on his. “It was a good idea. Thank you, Mako.”

He smiles at her, lightened. “Everything’s on me,” he adds, and Wu whoops. “So get whatever you like.”

“Oh, Mako, you don’t have to do that,” Asami starts to say, but then she sees Bolin shaking his head at her really aggressively:  _don’t, he wants to do this, just let him._

“It’s okay, I’ve been saving,” Mako says. “And you know, I have my own money now, I want to spend it on you guys.”

“Thanks, Mako,” Korra says. She’s smiling at him too, and he finally looks at ease instead of as if his back is against the wall.

Dinner goes smoothly after that. Conversation is light and funny and Bolin pretends to almost spill his drink on Opal and she nearly airbends him across the room. It feels good to be around everyone again without the threat of some new evil hanging over their heads. Korra takes Asami’s hand under the table again when they’re halfway through, links her fingers with Asami’s. And fortunately Wu talks enough to keep the conversation from ever reaching somewhere solemn or uncomfortable, which for once Asami finds that she appreciates.

That is, until they’re eating dessert and Wu turns to Asami suddenly, leaning his head on his hand as he looks at her. “So,” he says, “you never answered my question.”

“What question?” Asami asks.

“Wanna go out with a future king?” he asks, then corrects: “An ex-future king. Now just sort of a normal dude.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Mako mutters under his breath, and Opal giggles again.

Asami blinks at Wu. Now, seriously, he has to do this? She can see Korra laughing at her just slightly out of the corner of her eye. Damn it. “Oh, um, sorry,” she says. “I’m....”

She doesn’t know what to say. She doesn’t want to hurt Wu’s feelings, though she’s pretty sure he won’t be hurt if she just says no; he’s annoying but not an asshole, and he respects her. She doesn’t even think he is genuinely interested. He's likely just playing with her. But Asami feels like if she says something wrong now, she’ll never be able to take it back.

Korra squeezes her hand tightly underneath the table. As if to say, _tell him whatever you want, I support you._ And that’s enough.

“I’m taken,” Asami says, because that’s simple and truthful, and Wu’s mouth drops open.

“What?” He turns on Mako. “Not you! _Again?”_

Wu is, perhaps, a little more outraged than the situation calls for, in Asami’s opinion.

Mako looks taken aback. “What are you talking about?”

“Not him,” Asami says, very quickly. Sorry Mako. “Um. It’s not Mako.”

“Who, then?” Wu demands.

Asami shrugs, deciding to play coy. “You’ll find out, I guess.” Korra squeezes her fingers. The conversation moves on. Asami feels sort of strange after that though for the rest of the evening.

They don’t leave the restaurant until very late, no doubt irritating the employees who want to clear their table. (Bolin, Opal, Korra, Asami, and Wu pool their funds to leave a huge tip as an apology.) As they go outside, Bolin puts his jacket over Opal’s shoulders, and then he sidles up next to Asami and nudges her in the side with his elbow.

“Hey,” he says, and Asami truly does not like the sly slant of his smile. “Finally, huh?” And he grins at her.

Korra frowns at him. Asami, mortified, can’t say anything. Bolin winks at her and goes to say goodbye to the others before he leaves with Opal.

“What was that about?” Korra asks, but Asami just shakes her head.

“Lets get out of here,” she says. “Do you want to come back to my place?”

 

-

 

Back at Asami’s apartment, Korra follows Asami into the kitchen again, where Asami slowly takes the gold flower out of her hair and sets it into the jar with the others. She feels heavy somehow, like she failed tonight in ways she doesn’t understand.

Korra notices. “Are you all right?”

“I don’t know.” Asami figures it’s better to be truthful. “Do you want to stay for a while? They won’t fit that well but you can have some of my clothes if you want to change.”

Korra blinks at her. “Uh, yeah,” she says. “Okay.”

Asami then retrieves the change of clothes and toothbrush for Korra and gets changed herself, goes into the tiny bathroom to wash off her makeup. She hesitates before leaving the bathroom to face Korra again. She doesn’t know why—she feels, all of a sudden, strangely bereft, laid waste to. Like Korra’s going to see her in truth for the first time now, and Asami doesn’t know whether Korra will like what she sees.

Korra is sitting cross-legged on the couch in the tiny sitting room, fiddling with Asami’s radio. She looks up when Asami walks in. “Hey,” she says, her smile warm. She pats the space on the couch beside her.

Asami sits and takes the radio from Korra. “Here, look,” she says, and puts on one of her favorite stations: quiet violin music, piano as well, and then she sets it on the end table.

Korra, looking much more comfortable now that she’s out of that dress, tilts her head at Asami. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

Asami considers. She wants to take Korra’s hand and decides that she probably shouldn’t. “I feel like I messed up,” she says, quietly. Which is what I didn’t want to do.

“What, that thing with Wu?” Korra says. “It’s fine, Asami. He didn’t mean anything by it. I think he was trying to tease Mako more than you.”

It hadn’t seemed that way to Asami. “Maybe,” she says doubtfully. And then adds, very quickly: “I don’t want you to think I’m embarrassed about how I feel about you. I’m not.” She’s the furthest thing from embarrassed. She feels just about ready to start screaming it from the rooftops. “Like I said, I just....”

“Want to go slow.” Korra takes Asami’s hand, and it fills Asami with sudden relief. “Asami, it’s okay. I get it.” She looks down, then back up again. “I should probably tell you that Jinora knows though. I don’t know how she figured it out. I hope you don’t mind.”

“I don’t.” Asami is pleased to find that she really doesn’t; that she doesn’t have to lie even to herself. Of course Jinora figured it out, she thinks fondly. Always on the lookout for new romances there, that one.

Korra is silent for a moment. She looks over to the radio, and then sighs. “Does Bolin know?”

Asami doesn’t know what to say. What is there to say? “Yes."

“How?” Korra asks. Asami shakes her head, mutely. “No, you _do_ know,” Korra presses. “What did he mean in the parking lot before?”

Bolin’s voice in Asami’s head, pleased: _finally._ Damn him. Too observant and kindhearted but oblivious by half. Asami doesn’t know how to explain this without sounding pathetic, without making obvious how uncomfortable she is. She thinks Korra probably already knows.

She stands, starts walking around the room a little to work off her nervous energy. Korra watches her silently. Finally, Asami can settle on nothing to say but the truth.

“He’s known how I feel about you for a while,” Asami says. _How I feel about you._ As if that’s what she wants to say. “Since before you left.”

“Before I left?” Korra looks puzzled. “Before I left where?”

Asami shrugs.

Korra keeps looking at her. “Do you mean before I left for the South Pole?”

“Well…” Asami says helplessly; “yes.”

Korra stares at her. Asami feels flushed and lightheaded, exposed as a nerve. Asami doesn’t want Korra to think she has been doing nothing but pining for years—she hasn’t been. But Asami has known for a long time that she cares about Korra deeply, just not what to do about it. She feels embarrassed, caught off guard. She wonders what Korra is thinking, because she can’t tell from her expression.

“Really?” Korra says finally.

Asami nods. “It’s embarrassing,” she says. “I didn’t know how to tell you.”

“No, it’s okay. I’m glad you told me. I—” Korra hesitates now, thinking. “I’ve been thinking a lot about what you said in the spirit world. And I realized, all the letters you sent me—you’ve been so honest with me for a long time, and I just sort of tried to kiss you without saying anything.”

“You’ve more than said it now,” Asami says.

“No, I haven’t.” But then Korra doesn’t do what Asami expects. Instead, she turns up the volume of the radio and stands. “Dance with me?”

Asami blinks at her, then nods.

Korra tries to lead, because of course she does. And she might be the most talented bender in the world, but her dancing is still pretty clumsy, unpracticed. Asami puts her hand on Korra’s shoulder—and Korra’s hand is on Asami’s _waist_ and somehow this is information that Asami can’t stand to think about and yet can’t stop thinking about—and lets Korra lead even though Asami is tall enough to put her chin on the top of Korra’s head if she stretches up. Korra keeps staring down at her feet, trying to get them to move gracefully.

The music is slow and lovely; outside, the sky is dark, filled with stars. Asami closes her eyes and as they continue to dance, Korra gets bolder; pulls Asami closer, which makes Asami flush, and she’s glad Korra can’t see her face or isn’t looking at least. Korra’s hair smells clean and sweet and she is so intent on trying to impress Asami, on trying to get the steps of the dance right. Asami wonders if she’s been practicing and bites back a smile.

Then Korra trips and nearly sends the two of them toppling over onto the couch. Asami steadies her before Korra falls off balance and then starts, helplessly, to laugh.

Korra grumps at her. “What?”

“Nothing,” Asami says, and then she tucks a strand of hair behind Korra’s ear. “You’re cute, that’s all.”

“And heroic,” Korra insists. “And very determined to try so hard at dancing when I’m clearly incapable of it.”

“Yes,” Asami says; “all those things.”

Korra sits back heavily on the couch. Asami slides up next to her. Korra puts her arm around Asami’s shoulders. “Listen,” she says, suddenly; “I’m sorry I was away for so long. I didn’t know.”

“Don’t be,” Asami says. “You needed to do it.”

“And, uh.” Korra sounds flustered now. “I like you. If that wasn’t somehow obvious enough.”

“Good,” Asami says; “I like you, too.”

They sit on the couch together like that, talking, listening to the radio until it hits midnight and Korra really has to go home. “Thanks for letting me borrow your clothes,” Korra says. “I’ll get them back to you. Um—walk me out?” She’s blushing.

“Of course.” Asami walks Korra out of the building. Outside, the night is clear, crisp and cool. The air is sweet and clean.

Korra lingers on the stairs for a moment. Asami waits. Her heart is pounding lowly in her ears.

Korra turns to face her. Her eyes are bright in the stars. “Hi,” she says.

“Hi,” Asami says quietly, and she thinks, _please do._

Korra does. She leans up, pulls Asami close—and this time when she tilts her head to kiss Asami, she pauses to wait for Asami’s response. Asami doesn’t push her away. Asami tilts her head and presses her lips to Korra’s, deepens the kiss, the slide of Korra’s tongue. Korra’s hands curl in the front of Asami’s shirt, pulling her down, pulling her close.

Asami doesn’t think, _finally,_ because she hasn’t been doing nothing for three years but wait around for Korra to come back, no matter what anyone might think. But she does think, _finally,_ because she’s been waiting to kiss Korra since Korra almost kissed her in the spirit world, and the flowers and the dancing have been too much to handle, at heart, without this.

Korra pulls away, smiles goofily. “See you tomorrow,” she says, and then she kisses Asami again, quick, before she turns to leave.

 

-

 

Her father died three weeks ago. Asami doesn’t know if she’s okay. But she thinks, maybe she doesn’t have to be.

None of them are, in their own ways. But together, they manage—they do more than manage—they move forward.

 

-

 

Asami shows up to Avatar Island the next day with a basket packed for a picnic and a bag of treats for Naga. “I thought you would prefer something useful over flowers.”

“Flowers are good,” Korra says; “treats are better. Right, Naga?”

Naga huffs a breath against Asami’s hand.

“You look beautiful,” Korra says, and it would be shy if not for the look in her eye, determined and fierce and loving.

Asami pulls Korra in by the front of her shirt and kisses her on the cheek. “You’re sweet,” she says, and then turns her head to kiss Korra properly, on the mouth.

When she pulls away, she sees Jinora standing behind Korra, her hands clasped as she bounces up and down on her tiptoes, looking fit to burst with joy.

“Scram,” Korra says, not unkindly.

Jinora runs away giggling. “Have a nice date!”

Korra looks at Asami. She has Asami’s lipstick on the corner of her mouth. “She’s going to tell everyone now,” Korra says. “There’s no way she can keep it quiet anymore.”

Asami, holding the picnic basket in her left hand, takes Korra’s with her right. “Good,” she says. “I’m ready.”

And Korra smiles, bright like the sun, and stands on tiptoe to kiss Asami again, right on the nose.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
